{"id":85085,"date":"2015-04-23T12:06:20","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T16:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=85085"},"modified":"2024-08-20T16:11:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T20:11:19","slug":"better-call-caravaggio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Call Caravaggio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vince Gilligan borrows from the Baroque.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Detail_1\"<\/a>

Above left<\/em>, a still from Better Call Saul<\/i>; above<\/em>\u00a0right<\/em>, Caravaggio, The Sacrifice of Isaac<\/i> (detail), 1602.<\/p><\/div>\n

The eldest character in Better Call Saul<\/em> isn\u2019t Mike Ehrmantraut, Tuco\u2019s unsuspecting abuelita<\/em>, or any of the nursing-home residents shakily spooning gelatin from attorney-branded dessert cups. It\u2019s the show\u2019s sixteenth-century lighting scheme, which has better lines than even Bob Odenkirk himself\u2014they\u2019re just in the form of shadows rather than wry legalese.<\/p>\n

In fact, while Saul<\/em>\u2019s setting derives from the blue crystal \u201cartwork\u201d of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, much of its symbolism draws from the black brushstrokes of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.<\/p>\n

Saul<\/em>\u2019s creators, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, have already confessed a soft spot for symbolism<\/a>; they used a hot-and-cold color palette to divide the wardrobes of criminals and law-abiding citizens, with Jimmy bridging both worlds as he fights the temptation to break bad. These biblical undertones extend far past the fiery brimstone of Tuco\u2019s shirt and the heavenly hues of \u201cHamlin Blue\u201d\u2014they go all the way back to the Baroque era of painting. <\/p>\n

Caravaggio, born in Milan in 1571, is arguably the father of the movement, which challenged the idealized divinity of the Renaissance with distressing darkness and realism. For him, the critical moment to capture on canvas was not the sugarcoated theology of halos and resurrections, but the bitter prelude to this: Christ\u2019s flagellation rather than his return.<\/p>\n

Famously, Caravaggio pulled his models from the streets and preserved their natural flaws as the eyes saw them. It was not uncommon for his religious commissions to meet with complaint for their portrayal of, say, dirtied legs, or horses that appeared as ordinary, flesh-and-blood animals rather than groomed and churchly centerpieces. His goal was not to mock the church, but to bring it down from the heavens by demonstrating that divine light touched everyone, not just saints.<\/p>\n

And so, too, did darkness.<\/p>\n

With painters of the period widely devout to chiaroscuro (literally \u201clight-dark,\u201d from the Italian) as a means of capturing dimensional depth, Caravaggio pushed his shading further, reaching beyond the verisimilitude of soft gradation to place a dramatic new emphasis on emotional depth. Characterized by violent shadows and enveloping darkness, his aesthetic became known as tenebrism\u2014and more of a mood and statement than technique of the brush. Whereas chiaroscuro used volume and realism to humanize, tenebrism used division and obstruction to personify human suffering; one used light to breathe life into paintings\u2014the other, darkness to choke and trample it.<\/p>\n

\"Detail_5\"<\/a>

From Better Call Saul<\/i>\u2019s first episode, \u201cUno.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Detail_4\"<\/a>

The Calling of Saint Matthew <\/i>(detail), 1600.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nearly half a millennium later, this style has become the clear inspiration behind the visual aesthetic of Better Call Saul<\/em>. Pedantically, of course, all cinematic darkness is not equal\u2014and nor does it share equal purpose. Film noir, for example, is known for its heavy use of shadows, but they exist for two very different reasons: to create a veil of mystery and to hide the flaws of early Hollywood film sets. Saul<\/em> has need for none of that.<\/p>\n

But its creators did need a way to externalize the moral divisions within its characters. Breaking Bad<\/em> was about the battle between light and darkness; every other episode left audiences wondering if Walt would turn things around, if he would delude his family, if he would earn their forgiveness, if he would overcome cancer or drug cartels or the allure of one final cook. Until the very end, there was always room to repent.<\/p>\n

In Saul<\/em>, that battle is already lost; we\u2019ve already seen Jimmy\u2019s future as \u201cthe kind of lawyer guilty people hire,\u201d and so the plot and drama are in his division: not if he will break bad, but why. Faustus<\/em> personifies this through the voices of good and evil angels. Saturday morning cartoons, by flanking Pluto with angels and devils to personify the dog\u2019s superego and id. Gilligan and Gould called on Caravaggio\u2014and put their faith in an aesthetic designed to be as divisive as it is divine. As a result, it is easier to count the scenes where characters are not half cast in shadow than are.<\/p>\n

\"Saul_5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Saint_Jerome_Writing_1607\"<\/a>

Saint Jerome Writing<\/i>, 1607.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Saul_4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"1595-1600\"<\/a>

Boy Bitten by Lizard<\/i> (detail), 1595\u20131600.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Saul_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Saul_3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Painting a biblical allegory of light versus darkness directly onto the faces of its characters, Saul<\/em> captures life not as a gray marriage of black and white, but as a constant juxtaposition of the two at their purest. There\u2019s no middle-of-the-road Tuco; there\u2019s the man who scrubs his grandmother\u2019s carpets and the man who stains them with blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome rocks, you don\u2019t turn over,\u201d Mike tells the elder of Philadelphian detectives.<\/p>\n

Should you, you\u2019re bound to find some dirtied legs: brothers who uphold the sanctity of law but not of family, parents who sing camp songs but also embezzle, and criminal lawyers who go on to become criminal<\/em> lawyers.<\/p>\n

Matt Siegel writes at\u00a0www.matt-siegel.com.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vince Gilligan borrows from the Baroque. The eldest character in Better Call Saul isn\u2019t Mike Ehrmantraut, Tuco\u2019s unsuspecting abuelita, or any of the nursing-home residents shakily spooning gelatin from attorney-branded dessert cups. It\u2019s the show\u2019s sixteenth-century lighting scheme, which has better lines than even Bob Odenkirk himself\u2014they\u2019re just in the form of shadows rather than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":821,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1160],"tags":[35,17891,17890,17889,8151,8128,13965,15721,17893,67,17892,7592,17888],"class_list":["post-85085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-television","tag-art","tag-baroque","tag-better-call-saul","tag-bob-odenkirk","tag-breaking-bad","tag-caravaggio","tag-chiaroscuro","tag-lighting","tag-lighting-design","tag-painting","tag-tenebrism","tag-tv","tag-vince-gilligan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBetter Call Caravaggio: \u201cSaul\u201d Borrows from Baroque Painting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The lighting design in \u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d owes a debt to Caravaggio.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Better Call Caravaggio by Matt Siegel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 23, 2015 \u2013 Vince Gilligan borrows from the Baroque. The eldest character in Better Call Saul isn\u2019t Mike Ehrmantraut, Tuco\u2019s unsuspecting abuelita, or any of the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-23T16:06:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-08-20T20:11:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/detail_1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matt Siegel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matt Siegel\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Matt Siegel\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/11831afce9ab2f3a9646125b00433eb4\"},\"headline\":\"Better Call Caravaggio\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-23T16:06:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-20T20:11:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/\"},\"wordCount\":870,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/detail_1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"art\",\"Baroque\",\"Better Call Saul\",\"Bob Odenkirk\",\"Breaking Bad\",\"Caravaggio\",\"chiaroscuro\",\"lighting\",\"lighting design\",\"painting\",\"tenebrism\",\"TV\",\"Vince Gilligan\"],\"articleSection\":[\"On Television\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/\",\"name\":\"Better Call Caravaggio: \u201cSaul\u201d Borrows from Baroque Painting\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/detail_1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-23T16:06:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-20T20:11:19+00:00\",\"description\":\"The lighting design in \u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d owes a debt to Caravaggio.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/detail_1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/detail_1.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/better-call-caravaggio\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Better Call Caravaggio\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. 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